Conditional Formatting to Use a formula to determine which cells to format

**kenadams378** · 05-10-2013, 10:17 AM

Hi,

I'm trying to use conditional formatting to apply a rule to determine which cells to format based on data in a cell.

I have attached a sheet of data that includes the data that would determine which cells are to be formatted, this is column A.

When any of the data is entered from column A, the corresponding columns show which headers needed to shown.

Is there a general rule i can use for this or does it need to be seperate for each different data

Any help would be greatly appreciated

**kenadams378** · 05-13-2013, 04:40 AM

' Bump - No Response required'

**Fotis1991** · 05-13-2013, 04:48 AM

I saw your thread in Friday, but:

1) I had no time.

2)I was not able to understand which is the expected result and why(I can not understand the logic of the issue)

**kenadams378** · 05-13-2013, 05:26 AM

Apologies,

I attached the wrong doucment, i have attached the correct one that will make more sense to my requirements.

The expected result would be, depending on the data in column A would return all cells that required data highlighted.

Hope this helps

**FDibbins** · 05-13-2013, 10:49 AM

Sorry, I dont understand what you are trying to do. Please give more detail, and add a few samples of what your expected outcome is in your workbook

**kenadams378** · 05-13-2013, 10:53 AM

What i'm trying to achive is when data is entered into cell A2 it highlights further cells that are required to be populated

For example if you enter EQT into A2 it will highlight the next cell in red that are required.

I'm trying to understand how to do this

**FDibbins** · 05-13-2013, 11:32 AM

OK but how do we know which cells need to be highlighted - or is it all of them?
It kinda looks to me like you are already doing that anyway?

**kenadams378** · 05-14-2013, 04:50 AM

Ok, i'm just trying to understand how the formula & conditional formatting works

**Fotis1991** · 05-14-2013, 04:57 AM

The formula that you have in Conditional Formatting rules, does the same job as this one..

=LEN(CONCATENATE($A2,$B2,$C2,$D2,$E2,$F2,$G2,$H2,$I2,$J2,$K2,$L2,$M2))>0

Len function count the signs in a cell. So in fact your formula says:

If any of these cells(a2,b2.......m2) has even one sighn(letter,number or anything..), then highlight with red ALL these cells..

Edit: Same job like this one..

=COUNTA($A2:$M2)